Washington D.C. Ranked 7th Most Traffic-Congested Area in U.S.
Predictably, a search for "Washington traffic" yields an image of South Capitol Street.
Using GPS data from portable navigation products, TomTom—the maker of many of these aforementioned products—has been able to compile a list of the nation's most traffic-clogged regions:
Rank CITY/REGION % of congested roadways
1 Seattle, WA 43%
2 Los Angeles, CA 38%
3 Chicago, IL 37%
4 Montgomery County, MD 37%
5 San Francisco, CA 35%
6 New York, NY 31%
7 Washington, DC 30%
8 San Jose, CA 29%
9 Alexandria, VA 28%
10 Oakland, CA (Alameda County) 28%
According to the press release, "Cities* were ranked as most to least congested according to how fast cars could travel on the street network. A city’s traffic was defined as congested if drivers could travel at only 70% or less of the posted speed limit, meaning on average an hour long commute included 20 minutes or more of significant delays."
Image by Joe Schlabotnik, Flickr Creative Commons Attribution License
12:53 pm
ah yes, but we also have Alexandria, VA and MoCo in the top 10...so...we win?
1:16 pm
Alexandria? Must be the Beltway and 395, I can't imagine what else would've put Alexandria on the list.
11:01 am
Old Town Alexandria is awful! Have you ever been there during afternoon rush hour? I don't know how they do it, but they time the stoplights perfectly so that no one can move. You couldn't make the traffic any worse if you tried.